Ignorance of the Past
by Fox Pirate
Summary: What's the truth... who knows?
1. A History Lesson

_The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy is known far and wide for its completeness of its knowledge of the times. The times, however, tend to have problems themselves. This has been proven on countless occasions in history; embarrassingly false assumptions become fact, although their accuracy is only questioned eons later._

_For example, several million years ago, the galaxy was once believed to be three-dimensional. Based on purely optical observations, this made sense. Eventually, though, the idea was questioned, but those who did question it were severely punished. Finally, an explorer named Waet de Goug proposed that by sailing a starship in all directions at once, he would wind up at the point he started at, thus proving the galaxy had more than three dimensions. His experiment was funded by the queen of the nearby planet Eldomen._

_It took several months for Waet to mathematically derive how to sail in all directions at once. Finally, when he thought he had reached his calculatory destination, Waet disappeared and wound up not at the point he started at, but at a new point halfway across the galaxy. Today that point is home to a corrupt planet, but that has little to do with Waet discovering it._

_Although Waet's experiment was technically a failure, he did prove his idea. By figuring out how to sail in all directions at once, and traveling to a new point using none of the three dimensions that the people of the time knew of, he had shown the galaxy had more than three dimensions, and also that it was much bigger than previously conceived._

_Today, schoolchildren learn the story of Waet de Goug in galactic history class on most planets. It is now common knowledge that the galaxy has an uncountable number of unseen dimensions. But, we must not forget the ignorance of the past._


	2. Troubled Times and Thoughts

"Waet, wait, you're drunk."

"What…?" Waet, waiting, replied to the voice. He attempted to lash out at the speaker, but he found his arms swinging around instead.

"Well, Waet, what were you drinking?"

"Well indeed… just some water, thanks. And put some wine in it…" Waet was now sitting on the floor… exactly what he had intended to do, he was sure.

"Waet, can you see me?"

"See you…"

"Yes?"

"I see… double-you…" as the figures faded into blackness.

- - -

The first thing Waet thought when he woke up was, _Yikes, my face is oily. _The morning sun was blazing through the window, and he tried not to imagine that he was being cooked by it. Fortunately, it was only the first-quarter sun. On Eldomen, there were two proximate stars, but only one of them shone visible light; the other shone with anti-light. One could not see this sun, but it did have the effect of blocking out the visible, "prime" sun in small degrees at a time, which made the prime sun appear in cycles. In a few days it would become a crescent, and eventually there would be a day with no prime sunlight at all.

Waet's bedroom seemed overly regal for that of a mere physicist, but currently he was housed in the Guest Wing of the castle of King Reudiant and Queen Kossa, the rulers of the Atheist Church of Eldomen. Across from his red canopy bed was an armoire, which included all of his clothing he'd brought from his home planet Guratha, as well as royal attire endowed with the Eldomish crest: a single small planet contained in deep, deep blackness, which represented knowledge.

Deciding it was best not to be cooked by the half-circular sun, Waet heaved himself out of bed and found himself in white nightwear.

"When did I put that on…" he muttered sleepily to himself. He couldn't remember much of the night before, and obviously a royal maid or butler had changed him. He really didn't want to think about that.

Making sure the solid wooden door was locked beforehand, he went to look in the armoire for a suitable outfit. Not today would he wear his familiar Gurathian clothing… today was _the_ day, he knew. He put on some official-looking solid blood-red slacks with black boots, and a black-and-red overcoat. He regarded himself in the uncomfortably huge mirror on the adjacent wall before taking a brush from atop the armoire and hastily straightening his smooth brown hair back, and tying it at a point.

Startlingly, he heard a knock at his door. After briefly considering feigning absence (was he nervous?) he took three large steps and opened it. Beyond it was a man with curled black hair, unnaturally shiny, and wearing a black butler's uniform.

"Their royal Highnesses will be seeing you in an hour, I expect" he said.

"Yes…" Waet replied, "I'm looking… forward to it."

"That will be all then." The man concluded, before turning back and heading off to the left somewhere. Waet closed the door, looked in the mirror and burst out, "Well, _that_ was pointless!"

Feeling a new and unwelcome rush, he scooped up his study papers, documents and such from the desk by the fourth wall and put them in a bag, carrying it out the door and heading off to the right. The hallway was all red with velvet, with portraits of previous Highnesses on the stone walls in between the identical wooden doors.

Waet soon reached his destination, the library. He briskly walked past the various alarmingly tall bookshelves in sections, adorned with signs like "Atheism and its Teachings", "History", "Psychology", and "Reasons why Theism is bad and You Should Never Ever Believe any of it". The last particular one had especially small letter size.

Eventually he reached the "Physics" section, a fairly large one. There was a circular table amidst the boundless shelves of Knowledge, with a man sitting at it. He was only slightly shorter than Waet himself, with neat blonde hair, and nearly the exact same royal outfit. He looked impatient.

"Where have you been? You know you'll be seeing the Highnesses in fifty-four minutes?" the man nearly shouted in anxiousness.

"Yes, I know, but let's get start--"

"And you were drinking last night! Do you even remember?"

Waet blinked. "Oh, that makes sense. Now tell me what you think of--"

"Waet, the only reason I decided to become your apprentice is because I thought you had the right idea about this. According to our calculations, there _must_ be multiple dimensions, but it takes a certain amount of ability to be able to _express_ that idea, and you have it! You're always a breath away from messing up your chances." The man exhaled heavily.

Waet wanted to sigh and honestly apologize, and work harder to change his ways, and listen to what his apprentice had said and take it to heart, but he also wanted to make sure his proposal sounded alright, so he just replied, "You're right, I'm sorry, I'll be better about it next time.", and brought the bag of papers to the table and began sorting them out. "Listen here, Rold, I'm worried about paragraph B-4… it seems too biased in the Theist favor, where I talk about the possible existence of a dimension where the laws of physics don't even apply…"

Waet honestly considered himself as a pure atheist, and in the eyes of the Church, this was the mindset of an ideal citizen (the opposite of "ideal" being "punished"). However, he was also a physicist, and these two titles did confront. This particular paragraph B-4 was one such example, and by now he was wondering why he even put it in there in the first place. The answer came soon, however, that it was apparent that even such strange possibilities as a god were, well, possible, under the current known laws of particle theory. Waet had no problems with these laws, and neither did the current atheist community, but the implications found in his studies were startling… would the Church understand that he was merely the messenger of these particle-theoretical flaws, or would they believe him to be heretical in their perfect system?

"Hmm, yes, that does sound troubling…" Rold responded, rather unhelpfully but forgiving Waet all the same. "Well, if it's a dimension where physics don't apply…" he said, squinting, looking upwards, apparently in deep thought, "then is it even your grounds do be covering it, as one who studies physics?"

"Hey… hey, that's true…" Waet said, as if the problem was deftly solved, but he was still uneasy about it. He took the paper with the worry-provoking paragraph and made a careless "X" over the thing. These were just his notes; after all, nobody was allowed to read them except him. Rold, with a raised eyebrow, looked at the paper, then at Waet, who got the message and figured it was best anyway… he forcedly crossed out the paragraph at length with his pen, certain to make every, single, sentence, unreadable.

Soon, he would speak in front of the Royal Highnesses of Atheist Eldomen. If all went well, his experiment would take place tomorrow.


	3. The Physics of it All

Silently, the Church of Eldomen knew there were theistic practices outside the castle walls. Secret, hidden, underground, they taught their terrible beliefs and spoke of one's fortune in the "afterlife", a myth which the Church thought was the most punishable idea. These heretics, when discovered, were punished rather severely, for it could not be allowed for these _foolish_ practices to be _deceiving_ the gullible public against Atheism, which was the only belief that followed _common sense._

Waet never cared for any of that. The tortures the Church imposed seemed contradictory to Atheism's basic teachings of love for your fellow man ("Life is all that one has; let us make our Lives in Love"), which taken at face value seemed like the nicest way to live, but he just got a nice job out of the situation and figured best to keep his big mouth shut.

Still, it was strange to him how there could be such violence that was justifiable (governmentally) in an increasingly advanced and intellectual society.

- - -

When Waet and his apprentice, Rold, had finally decided they had done enough preparations, there were ten minutes left until the hearing. He quickly gathered his notes and, making sure they were in order this time, put them in his bag and hurried out of the library, Rold at his side. They would have to get to the Hearing Room by reaching the lowest level of the Guest Wing by traveling down two flights of stairs, making a left, then walking through a vast archway, traversing into an enormous botanical garden with strange multi-colored flowers, crossing a small bridge, going through another tower's archway, climbing two more flights of stairs, making another left, going down a hallway, and proceeding through the large marble door on the other side, engraved with the words "Royal Hearing Room". To save time, none of that will be described.

The Hearing Room was large, but not uncomfortably so. On either side there were concentric semicircular benches, each nearly filled with scholars, physicists like himself except probably of higher rank, and others of knowledgeable nature. They looked angry. On each wall was a gigantic Eldomish crest, and like everywhere else inside the castle, it was decorated with mostly red material. Where _did_ they get so much red dye? Waet thought back to the garden, then immediately remembered the flowers were in fact multi-colored… did they only take the dye from the red flowers? Was that enough? Were the other flowers simply chopped up and used as fertilizer? Did the dye even come from the flowers at all?

Looking at the far end of the Room, Waet shivered uneasily… had he gotten the time wrong somehow? At the center of the back wall on thrones sat their Royal Highnesses themselves. They were the dark-brown-haired king with a rugged beard, and the queen, with smooth, long flowing black hair. On either side, Waet assumed, were their respective advisors. In front of them, closest to Waet himself, was a podium with an elderly man standing at it, apparently franticly defending his case.

"But… but surely you realize that under current laws of physics, the possibilities are endless! No-nobody knows what could be out there!" the man stammered. Nobody in the room looked impressed or amused, except for the king, who looked the latter. However, Waet alone wore a look of confusion.

"Professor Kentz" muttered Rold quietly from his left side. "They brought him here under suspicions of teaching his students alternate views, you know. Heretical stuff."

The current Hearing continued. Still wearing the amused expression, the king spoke forth, "Professor… do you teach physics? I'm aware that you do not. Therefore I realize that you're not nearly as fit to understand it as some more, _cooperative_ and _competent _physicists, who do not insist on such ridiculous notions as yourself." Waet noticed now that the other smiling one in the room was none other than the king's advisor, who apparently had speaking privileges but chose not to use them at this time. "Ah, here comes one now, hello Mr. De Goug." The king continued, noticing them.

Upon hearing his name, Waet knew everyone would turn to the entrance of the room and look at him in an instant, which they did. He was again aware how oily his face felt.

The man at the podium also turned and looked at Waet, very fearful and with mouth agape. If he thought Waet would be able to save him now…

"He… Hello there" Waet replied not too softly, but smiling weakly. "Bad… bad time?" he continued, trying to pretend the king was an old friend, which he wasn't.

"This Hearing has gone on long enough, past the time allotted." The king said, ignoring Waet but answering his question nonetheless. "Take him away", he commanded, motioning towards the professor. The queen, sitting next to him, frowned but said nothing.

"I've… I've done nothing wrong!" Professor Kentz exclaimed while being forced toward on the other side of the room by two guards. The heavy door closed with a bang, which echoed through the Room, and then all was silent. Someone coughed.

"Tiresome… now, the next Hearing, I presume, Mr. De Goug?" asked the king.

"I'm ready." Waet replied. The shock of the previous incident was subsiding, and now he was collecting the pieces of his proposal in his head, while walking anxiously up to the podium. On the left side of the lowest bench was a place reserved for Rold to sit; Waet could see him out of the corner of his eye when at the podium.

"Let's make this quick… Mr. De Goug, I understand you have been brought here from your home planet Guratha? On… charges of a crime…?" The king appeared to be thinking. Waet was about to cry out, but the king continued, "…no, an experimental proposition. Ha!" he laughed.

"Heh… hehe…" Waet clicked his tongue. "And yes… I propose an experiment that will prove the existence of multiple dimensions, not just the three we can observe."

Waet heard murmuring and whispering throughout the Room. He hoped they wouldn't do that after _everything_ he said.

"Very interesting, Mr. De Goug, very… but before I hear the actual ideas behind it, tell me… what would be the negative effects of your success?"

Apparently he was getting right to the point; Waet was afraid of this. "Negative…? Your highness, the only reason I study physics is for the pursuit of Knowledge…"

"Intentions aside, tell me…_ what would be negative about it?"_

"Well… I suppose… certain people could… interpret things in a way… the _wrong _way, of course… that certain dimensions could be… lacking in laws?"

More murmuring, a little louder. Perhaps that would happen after every other sentence instead?

"I, for one…" this was the queen who began, finally, in a beautiful, strong voice, "believe that any implications from Mr. De Goug's experiment would not be his fault. If his reasoning is valid, we shouldn't stifle it for mere political reasons…"

"Why… why of course" answered the king. "After all, we're not hypocrites!" he said, which received nervous laughter throughout the Room, all but from his advisor, who looked sour. "Now, what is your… actual experiment?"

Finally. "I have made designs for a small starship which can attempt to travel in all directions at the same time." He paused, letting the absurdity sink in. "However, there is one small but very important modification. Aboard this starship, there must be an object of highly excessive density. Namely, a neutron star.

"Imagine, if you will, a simple flat starship, on a two-dimensional plane. It can only traverse in two dimensions, correct? Unless…" he took one of his random papers, "…it was bent. Normally, if this two-dimensional ship were to create force in all directions at once, it would either implode or explode, resulting in the respective destruction. This is because it has nowhere to _move_. If merely a small portion of this ship was bent into the third dimension… a small degree of protrusion... the two-dimensional forces would send this slightly off-balance object into the third dimension.

"In our own three-dimensional world…a piece of paper, on a table, being squished from all sides, would crumple upwards. It _does_ have a place to move. The problem with the two-dimensional starship in the two-dimensional universe is, it doesn't 'know' it can move 'upwards'.

"This problem translates into the three-dimensional starship I propose to have built. How would it know it can move 'upwards' when it's so much more convenient to just explode? The neutron star is the answer."

"Mr. De Goug…" the king interrupted, "It has long been predicted and guessed at that neutron stars propel objects into some 'other dimension', but there is no proof. Why are you so sure?"

"I've done research, and I'm sure of it. It would only take a low-power star, one that's possible to control, and it must be in the exact center of gravity of the ship…

"If timed properly, the neutron star will send a selected, infinitesimal part of the ship into some other dimension, which will cause the normally-explosive pressure of the surrounding forces to merely "flip" the rest of the ship outside…"

"… and if this works", continued the king, "what will it look like, and how will you… return from this… 'outside' dimension?"

"To the observer, I'm not sure… I believe the ship will appear to get small very rapidly, perhaps just seeming to disappear all at once as soon as the process begins. After a few seconds, the ship's engines will turn off, and gravity will send the ship back to its exact starting location… that is, it will re-appear…"

Once again, he heard murmuring, and a distinct chuckle. "Gravity?" asked the king, skeptical.

"Well, yes… remember the flat piece of paper? The two-dimensional plane must be perpendicular to the force of gravity, or else everything would slide down to one side. A two-dimensional object flipped upwards by the process would fall back down, due to three-dimensional gravity. I've calculated exactly what needs to happen in order for my ship…" was it 'his ship' now? "…to flip directly upwards, that is, perpendicular to our plane, and fall back to where it once was."

"And you'll be on this ship while this is going on?"

"Yes. I don't know what I'll be able to observe, or if I can even observe anything in this state, but yes."

"I see…" the king looked troubled, but intrigued all the same. "Those who accept the validity of the experiment?" Almost every listener in the room raised their hand. One scholar, a balding man in his mid-40's, stood up.

"Mr. De Goug? I appreciate the innovation in this idea, but what about…"

For the next several minutes, Waet was asked questions about very technical, scientific things indeed, and answered them skillfully.

"Then, it's settled!" exclaimed the king, after no further questions. "For the remainder of the day, and until the scheduled… launch…? Ha! The scheduled launch, which will be at eight in the evening, our engineers will build Mr. De Goug's ship to its exact specifications. Denco, Mr. De Goug's papers, if you will…"

Apparently this was the name of the king's advisor. From his lower seat beside the king, Denco proceeded to get up and walk over to the front of the podium. Waet had selected nine papers, the neatest ones: they were the schematics and detailed descriptions of the ship. Cheerfully, he handed them to Denco, who to Waet's surprise exchanged a snarl so subtle that only Waet could see it. It seemed to say, "You were lucky."

When it was over, the various Knowledgeable ones filed to exit from the Room. Was his Hearing the last of the day? Waet himself stuffed the rest of his less important notes into his bag, again, and looked over to Rold, who looked ecstatic. "Waet, that was excellent!", he said in a not-so-hushed whisper.

"I do hope it works…" Waet replied, even though he himself couldn't help but feel satisfied with it.


	4. A Narrative Dialogue?

_The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy is known far and wide for its completeness of its knowledge of the times. The times, however, ten—_

Wait, we've heard this before. What are you?

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy defines itself as a very near-complete compilation of anything and everything a galactic hitchhiker would need to know. And some things they wouldn't._

Any entries on God in there? Or maybe a lack thereof? Because, you know, that last entry had little or nothing to do with the physicist's struggle with society and society's struggle with the existence and/or qualities of a god.

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was made and edited with the idea in mind of completely ignoring the philosophical struggles with God whenever possible. It's just tiresome. However, God is still mentioned several times. The Babel fish, for example…_

Yes, I know of the Babel fish. It mentions God, but is there no explicit entry on him? Or Him?

_The Hitchhiker's…_

You can just call it 'the Guide'…

…_Guide to the Galaxy thinks you should drop the subject. First of all, god or God was insignificant to the central theme in the previous entry. Second of all, a galactic hitchhiker doesn't need to know anything about God._

Oh, I don't know… what if there was a society on some planet that required a potential hitchhiker to be knowledgeable about God or be executed, or something?

_No such religious societies exist in the galaxy._

Are there any predominantly religious societies at all?

_None whatsoever._

So the _entire_ galaxy is atheist?

_All, except for the Kieqyens of Pokleran IV. They worship a pencil._

…That… that figures…

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy defines God as a mostly harmless… waste of time. An intelligent being as yourself should, and, it is assumed, does, know this._

That's terrible, though… is there no faith?

_Who has faith?_

I would ask the people of Earth. But you can't… they're all dead.

_Earth was the last God-worshipping planet in the galaxy. And even that was kind of half-and-half._

How convenient…so God… is dead?

_God was never alive._

You don't know everything, you've been wrong before. You're a book, a database, albeit an intelligent one… and since you're intelligent, you're subject to bias.

_Less so than you._

I still think you're wrong. The galaxy is too big. Even if a religious… faithful… even if a society doesn't exist, you don't know God actually doesn't.

_Are you suggesting I prove a negative?_

That… that's not scientifically valid, is it?

_Clearly._

But it's the only way to quell a faith. How true. Ironic, isn't it, the only way to disprove a faith in something is to scientifically prove the negative, which isn't valid. Or mostly invalid.

_It's been done before._

Faith still exists.

_Where?_

It did in Earth.

_Earth no longer exists._

No thanks to scientific negative proof! It was blown up, not enlightened!

_Some would say that's the same thing._

I still think faith exists.

_Where?_

I… don't know. You're the galactic database. But you've been wrong.

_Do you have faith?_

If I did, you couldn't stop it.

_But you don't._

You don't know that.

_Neither do you._

- - -

You can kill the idea of God, but you can't kill faith in others. If you have faith, then the idea of God exists in you. If the idea of God exists in you, then God exists.

What a remarkably stalemated system!

- - -

What of the very important and relevant idea of an afterlife?

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the afterlife as a myth created by religious societies of old in order to exploit the masses for profit._

_Life itself is too important for "afterlife" nonsense. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy prides itself in finding life's ironies for humor and amusement._

Do you know there's not an afterlife?

_No._

Then if there is, the galaxy could very well be in a particularly bad spot.

_True. But, it's time to wake up, Waet._

What…?


End file.
